Members of the Russian Pussy Riot protest group and other well-known activists held a memorial in the German capital, Berlin, on February 18 for fierce Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, who died on February 16 in a remote prison in Russia's Arctic region.
Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Lyusya Shtein -- who fled Russia in 2022 amid pressure from the authorities over their public protests against Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine -- attended the Berlin gathering, the Meduza website reported
Lyubov Sobol, a close associate of Navalny, and exiled former Russian state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova also attended, the report said.
Many of the participants in the protest wore pink hoods and masks and carried protest banners in front of the Russian Embassy briefly before leaving, German dpa news agency reported.
"We call on the international community to show solidarity and to work for justice," the Pussy Riot activists said.
"Aleksei Navalny's murder and threats to Pussy Riot members are attacks on the fundamental values of freedom, justice, and human dignity that we have to defend with determination," the group said.
SEE ALSO: Defying Authorities, Russians Pay Tribute To Navalny; Hundreds DetainedOrganizers said German authorities had demanded that Pussy Riot protesters remove their masks and threatened them with arrest if they did not do so, leading demonstrators to leave the site.
Meduza reported that protesters had planned to march from there to the Brandenburg Gate but were stopped by police.
The leaders of the protest have all faced threats or imprisonment from Russian authorities, especially following the Kremlin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Pussy Riot came to prominence in 2012 after three of its members were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for a stunt in which they burst into Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral and sang a "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time and campaigning for his subsequent return to the Kremlin.
Tolokonnikova and bandmate Maria Alyokhina had almost completed serving their two-year prison sentences when they were freed in December 2013 under an amnesty. The two dismissed the move as a propaganda stunt by Putin to improve his image ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, held in the Russian resort city of Sochi.
Shtein, 26, a Pussy Riot activist, has lived in Vilnius since leaving Russia in 2022.
Sobol, 36, a lawyer and highly visible aide to Navalny, fled Russia in August 2022 amid pressure from the authorities, with media reports saying she was living in Estonia.
Ovsyannikova and her children have lived abroad since a few months after she appeared briefly on state television in March 2022 holding a sign reading: "Stop the war! Don't believe propaganda."
SEE ALSO: Russian TV Journalist Who Protested War On-Air Stripped Of Child CustodyA court sentenced her in absentia to 8 1/2 years in prison for purportedly spreading false information about the military.
Shortly after the Pussy Riot protest, some 250 demonstrators gathered near the Russian Embassy in another protest against Navalny’s death, Berlin police said.